Archival Artifacts from the History of Economics

Harvard. Single Tax, Socialism, and Anarchism. Final Exam. Anderson, 1918

by Irwin Collier 2 weeks ago

Perhaps some last-minute re-staffing of courses was required during the 1917-18 academic year because of colleagues joining the war effort in Washington, D.C. All I know is that the survey course on schemes of social reform that was solidly in the teaching portfolio of Thomas Nixon Carver was taught by Benjamin M. Anderson during his last year at Harvard. Carver’s own course outline with reading assignments for 1919-20 and the corresponding final examination questions from 1920 have been posted earlier. This posting shows the deviation between the original course announcement (Carver to teach Economics 7b) and the ex post staffing and course enrollment report for the year in the annual report of the Harvard president (Anderson taught Economics 7b).

Judging from the examination questions, it would appear that the Russian Revolution was not yet incorporated into the Harvard economics curriculum. Marxian economics did rate one of the ten questions on its own and shared another question with everyone from Henry George Single Taxers through Anarchists, Utopians up to and including the American Federation of Labor.

____________________________

Course Announcement

A critical study of the theories which underlie some of the more radical programmes of social reform. An examination also of the social utility of private property in its various forms; also some attention to the concept of justice in economic relations; the concept of progress; the significance of conservatism and radicalism.